Obsessed With Film

Posted by Matt Holmes

The announcement back in May that TORQUE director Joseph Khan was set to helm a massive $70 million budgeted adaptation of William Gibson’s sci-fi novel NEUROMANCER was met with much disdain and disappointment across the web.

The novel written in 1984 has something of a large cult following and is often said to have been a big influence on THE MATRIX but instead of The Wachowski’s, Alex Proyas or hell, even Francis Lawrence… they are stuck with a music-video director who somehow landed this job…

Neuromancer tells the story of Case, an out-of-work computer hacker hired by a mysterious patron to participate in a seemingly impossible crime. The novel examines the concepts of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, multinational corporations overpowering the traditional nation-state and cyberspace long before these ideas became fashionable in popular culture including the internet itself.

Now if you weren’t a fan of the choice of director, I think you should probably look away now….

Joblo say that Hayden Christensen will lead the movie. That’s the guy who 20th Century Fox are trying to convince us in the new Keanu Reeves with their promotion for next month’s sci-fi movie JUMPER…

Reeves who of course was in THE MATRIX and also starred in the adaptation of William Gibson’s novel JOHNNY MNEMONIC in the mid 90’s.

Is Christensen really the Keanu-Reeves of this decade or is that too much of a worrying thought?

To be fair to the guy, I actually really liked his work in the drama SHATTERED GLASS a few years back but I just can’t see this kid ever becoming an action star that audiences will regularly pay their money to see.

Filming on this will probably be post-strike and it’s going to be interesting to see how much money JUMPER makes next month, because a $70 million project on Christensen’s shoulders without STAR WARS in the title is not guaranteed.

categories - Movie News, Sci-Fi

Further Reading

• Fun Stuff: Picard vs. Vader

• Neuromancer to get $70 million adaptation

• Darth Vader joins Mace Windu in “Jumper”

• Greatest Movie Scenes #2 - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

• Apatow’s not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy!

2 Comments »

1. I too got the Keanu Reeves vibe from that poster and wondered if I was seeing things. No offense to Hayden, but Keanu still has by far more of a charismatic movie star quality. Which is strange since Hayden has starred in bigger pictures.

   I also never thought I’d see the day when studios would want to mold their star after Keanu Reeves, but we’ve lived through this a couple of times now. The first might have been Chris Klein, then Paul Walker, and a couple of others I’ve now forgotten about, and now seemingly Hayden Christensen. Looking back, the attempts haven’t been too successful. But I’m not sure anybody but Keanu could be successful in the Keanu mold. He is too erratic and unique to himself. He makes oddball career decisions, some of which pan out, many of which don’t. Anybody following in Keanu’s footsteps would get hopelessly lost. Keanu himself seems frequently lost, but it works out for him, because it is who he genuinely is. No amount of studio calculation will be able to duplicate that.

   Comment by whoa | January 8, 2008

2. Gibson’s work as a writer was all part of the cyberpunk stuff that influenced the Wachowskis and the Jumper poster is clearly trying to ape The Matrix, but I think all the “Christensen the new Keanu?” stuff is coincidental.

   Jumper looks quite interesting, and The Neuromancer has the potential to be something good. I’m not keen on Christensen (unlike the awesome Keanu, hail!) after he turned Darth Vader into a sulky emo kid and turned in some of the worst parts of the Star Wars prequels. Still, I’ll give him a chance and it’ll be interesting following his choices for the future…

   Comment by James Clayton | January 8, 2008

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